had changed over to the new policy of _Diversified
Farming_.

Instead of putting all their work upon one crop, they planted from three
to a dozen different crops each year. They manufactured their corn into
cattle. They gave the soil a square deal in the matter of fertilisation.
They learned to plant better seed and to pay attention to the Weather
Bureau. They studied the market reports. And, best of all, they swung over
from muscle to machinery, until to-day the value of the machinery on
American farms is fully a thousand millions.

All this amazing progress that I have been describing is by no means the
best that the New Farmer will do. It is merely what he has done by the aid
of machinery. What he will do by the aid of SCIENCE remains to be seen.

Scientific agriculture is young. It has had to wait until machinery
prepared the way, by giving the farmers time to think, and money to spend.
The first scientist who took notice of farming was the Frenchman,
Lavoisier. He found out the composition of water in 1783, and was in the
midst of many discoveries, when a Paris mob hustled him to the guillotine.
The famous Liebig next appeared and founded the first agricultural
experiment station. Then came Berthelot--the father of synthetic
chemistry, with his sensational announcement--"The soil is alive."

To-day the New Farmer finds himself touched by Science on all sides. He
knows that there are more living things in one pinch of rich soil than
there are people on the whole globe. He knows that he can take half a
dozen handfuls of earth from different parts of his farm, mix them
together, send one thimbleful to a chemist, and find out exactly the kind
of crop that will give him the best harvest. And more, now that science
has given him a peep into Nature's factory, he can even feel a sense of
kinship between himself and his acres, because he knows that the same
elements that redden his blood are painting the green hues on his fields
and forests.

There are now fifteen thousand New Farmers who have graduated from
agricultural colleges; and since the late Professor W. C. Atwater opened
the first American experiment station in 1875, fifty others have sprung
into vigorous life. There is also at Washington an Agricultural Department
which has become the greatest aggregation of farm-scientists in the world.
To maintain this Department Uncle Sam pays grudgingly eleven millions a
year. He pays much more than this to give food and